Art of Leadership: Paradigm Shift

I am a student of “Art of Effective Leadership” and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of my best subjects.

In the recently concluded national elections in India, Prime Minister Modi achieved a landslide re-election victory. In that victory was hidden an important leadership concept which many leaders ignore or are not aware of - “The Paradigm Shift” (if you want to read it thru the prism of your political beliefs,  then please avoid reading further as the article is about leadership and not about politics).

The Paradigm Shift: Modi was confident that majority of 600 million voters will vote for him and they did but many pundits were surprised by the results. One of them, Mihir Sharma, in his opinion piece beautifully described their feeling in his post-election results analysis where he said “I felt stranger in my own country” as he was, like many others, was shocked that that the “so called” pundits & opinion makers could not read the voters mind the way Modi could.

So, what could Modi read which the likes of Mihir could not; “The Paradigm Shift”.

Stephan Covey in his path breaking book “Seven habits of effective people” describes the concept of “Paradigm Shift” as “we see the world not as it is but as we are conditioned to see it. It is the way we “see” the world – not in terms of our visual sense of sight, but in terms of perceiving, understanding, interpreting them”.

Let me explain his definition with example from India, Modi and Mihir.

The great “Paradigm Shift” in India: I grew up in a generation which had a huge colonial and socialist hangover; it was the time when common man had to wait for years to buy a scooter; cement; phone and cooking gas connection; flying was as distant a dream as flying to mars is today.

There were various Interest groups within the political and intellectual class that acted like the erstwhile colonial masters by ensuring that these basic services and facilities were kept away from the masses but were available for themselves which allowed them to establish their supremacy. In short interest groups ensured we were kept and perceived exactly the west always described us – poor; illiterate and Inferior.

In the 90s, thanks to the opening up of economy by the then Prime Minister of India PV Narsimha Rao, the paradigm started shifting away from socialist mindset and arrival of Modi and technology accelerated the shift away from socialist and colonial hangover. Indians became more aspiration, ambitious, confident about themselves and India’s culture and history thus more nationalist and they started demanding respect, delivery and accountability from the government.

This was a big “Paradigm Shift” which had taken place in India.

Dealing with the Paradigm Shift: Modi the leader read the shift better than any other political leader or pundit and that is why in his first term he focused on new paradigm; delivering a decisive, corrupt free governance, providing basic services and by being unapologetic about who we are (thus labelled as nationalist). One good example of that is a very basic but very important aspiration issue “toilets” for women. In last five years, Modi built 95 million toilets (that is equal to the entire population of Vietnam).

When seen from eyes of pundits sitting in their air-conditioned echo chambers these were inconsequential thus not worth writing or talking about (that is why it hardly got mentioned). But when seen from the eyes of a mother who struggled and embarrassed to respond to nature’s call or for a father who was worried for her daughter to go out in open to answer nature’s call or the girl who did not eat well to avoid going out to answer nature’s call - this was a very big deal.

If ever there was an award for empowerment of women, then it has to go to Modi the leader as through his delivery of toilets, he liberated women from the embarrassment; empowered them to be aspirational. No wonder they voted for Modi and voted in big numbers. Apart from toilets, he provided other aspirational services which many Indians could only dream of - bank account, medial insurance, electricity among others which meant men also joined the party to vote for Modi in large numbers.

On the other hand, pundits continued to see India as Covey described -not as it is- but as they are conditioned to see – from the lenses of socialist and colonial hangover - India could do nothing right and nothing right was happening in India because in their minds, Indians continue to be poor, illiterate & inferior. Voters proved them wrong.  

Leadership Lesson: Change is only thing which is constant. Paradigm in which companies do business, keep changing and the recent technology progress has just accelerated the shift. There have been many examples where incumbent companies like Mihir missed reading the shift and were shocked and surprised at the state they find themselves in. Let me share three examples:

- Amazon changed the way we shopped ; we know the struggle of Walmart.

- Uber changed the way commuters traveled ; we know the struggle of taxi companies.

- Netflix changed the way we watch TV we know the struggle of cable companies,

Past performance is no guarantee for future success: For the Modi’s, Amazon’s, Uber’s and Netflix’s of the world it cannot be business as usual as the paradigm under which they got success will soon shift and the if they do not change their game as per the changed paradigm they can go the Apple way.

The Apple Way: While one Steve (Jobs) saw the paradigm shift and created the smart phones the other of Steve (Ballmer) and the original mobile company Nokia could not see it and perished in one of the most important product segment.

Steve Jobs who could create success at Apple could not replicate it at Black Cube and John Sculley who was successful at Pepsi could not replicate it be at Apple. Same individuals different companies produced opposite results. One can easily attribute it to their ability to replicate same skills in different paradigm.

Today, Apple is struggling. A smart phone with bigger screen size, faster processing speed; better resolution and higher mega pixel would have considered success in the old paradigm which Steve operated in but in the new paradigm it is hardly considered a success and no wonder it is losing share to its rival (for Modi come 2024, talking about Congress or Corruption free government will hardly get voters excited because that would have become the norm and a new paradigm would have come into play)

In the end: Covey through the original author of the word Paradigm Shift has an advice for Modi, Mihir, Microsoft and Apple “almost every significant breakthrough in the field of scientific (and emotional) endeavor is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigm. Change the way you see the problem as in the end the way we see the problem is the problem.